"As the crown rhetorically asks, `How much worse does it get?'" she stated.

Judge Syme said he treated St Pius X as "his own pedophilic smorgasbord", with dozens having complained of abuse over four-and-a-half years at the school.

Denham's victims intermittently left in tears as the court heard how, through the protection of church colleagues, he was able to have 18 years of uninterrupted offending across schools in NSW.

At St Pius X College in the Hunter region, where he taught from 1975 to 1979, Judge Syme said the abuse happened "wherever and whenever" Denham wanted - in the playground, at his office and even outside the confessional.